Finding Fragments and Comma Splices

Jesse’s mother was barely recognizable, her straight black hair was covered with a greenish-blonde wig she had found in the dumpster behind the Veggie Grill on the Pacific Coast Highway in Hermosa Beach. People passing by were giving her funny stares. As she stood in front of the restaurant. She was in her white spandex gym outfit, she probably hadn’t washed it in weeks. Jesse could smell her from ten yards away, now she was staring at her reflection in a newspaper rack. Her fingertips tracing the contours of her sharp cheek bones.  Her eyes were bloodshot, she probably hadn’t slept the night before.

Jesse tried to get his mom’s attention while Officer Bergdorf looked on. Feeling sorry for the mother, but even more for the kid. Geez, the poor kid’s mother was doing this more and more lately, doing her crazy “exercise walks” from Torrance to El Segundo. Sometimes twenty miles a day, and this was in addition to all her working out at the gym. Her tiny body was shriveling into a prune.

Embarrassed, Jesse looked at his mother. He said, “Take the wig off. It’s filthy.”

She wasn’t listening. She turned her head this way and that. Admiring the glamorous film star image she saw in the newspaper rack’s reflection.

“Jesus, Mother, you’re going to get lice. Do you have any idea where that wig has been?”

Finally, she recognized her son’s voice. She turned to him.

“Jesse? How do I look?”

“We’re going home. I’m already late for school, thanks to you.”

He approached her and carefully pinched the germ-infested wig before flinging it on the roof of the Veggie Grill.

“What you do that for?”

“We’re going home now. You need to take your Seroquel.”

She looked at Officer Bergdorf. His bowling ball belly spilling over his gun belt. He had asked her out on a date a year earlier. Told her he’d barbecue her the best steak she had ever had. As far as he knew, she was just some good looking divorced lady who was into exercise. That was before he found out she was bipolar. Lucky for him. She had refused him.

Now the officer was looking at the poor woman, skinny as a rail, gaunt, little more than a skeleton. She didn’t think much of him either. She studied his greasy haired comb-over. Which failed to conceal his balding pate. Then holding her nose with an air a disapproval, she stared at his bulging gut and said, “I told you to lay off the donuts.”

He patted his belly affectionately. “I’m hooked, Regina. There’s no cure for me.” He looked at Jesse. “She gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, I just need to get her home and make her take her medication. She’ll be fine.”

He thanked the officer for calling him and got his mother inside the faded red Corolla. On the way home, she complained that she hadn’t finished her walk. Jesse told her he’d miss his first two classes because of this stupid episode. He reminded her of the importance of taking her medicine. It kept her “normal,” or at least close to it.

“You don’t need to lecture me. I know all about it. But I prefer to get the same healing benefits from exercise. It’s more natural.”

“Exercise helps, but it doesn’t work like your medicine.”

When they got home, he went into the kitchen and pulled the Seroquel out of its foil packet and put it in her hand as he poured her a glass of water.

“Come on. Down the hatch, just like the doctor said.”

He watched with relief as she swallowed the pill. Thank, God, now she’ll be half normal at work. She can’t afford to lose her job, now that would really suck.